In a recent filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump-led Department of Justice (DOJ) is doubling down on arguments made under former President Joe Biden that users of illegal drugs—including marijuana—”pose a clear danger of misusing firearms.”
That risk, DOJ contends, justifies the longstanding federal prohibition on gun ownership by drug consumers—known as Section 922(g)(3)—despite the Constitution’s broad Second Amendment protections.
In a petition for review by the high court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argues that despite recent appeals court decisions calling the constitutionality of the firearms ban into question, the restriction is nevertheless lawful.
“Section 922(g)(3) complies with the Second Amendment,” the government’s June 2 filing in the case, U.S. v. Hemani, says. “That provision targets a category of persons who pose a clear danger of misusing firearms: habitual users of unlawful drugs.”
Some lower courts have said the government’s blanket ban on gun and ammunition possession infringes on the Second Amendment—at least as applied to certain individual cases—because there’s no historical justification for such a broad restriction on an entire category of people.
But in the appeal petition in Hemani, Trump’s solicitor general said the ban is necessary and narrowly tailored enough to survive the legal challenge.
The federal statute “bars their possession of firearms only temporarily and leaves it within their power to lift the restriction at any time; anyone who stops habitually using illegal drugs can resume possessing firearms.”
Notably, while the government mentions “habitual” users of illegal drugs 40 times in its filing, that word does not itself appear in 922(g)(3). The language of the statute prohibits anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition.
A reply brief from Hemani’s lawyers is due to the Supreme Court by July 21.
While DOJ is asking the high court to take up the Hemani case, at least two other, similar cases are waiting in the wings: U.S. v. Cooper and U.S. v. Baxter both of which also hinge on the constitutionality of 922(g)(3).
In Cooper, an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel dismissed a three-year prison sentence against a person convicted for possession of a firearm while being an active user of marijuana. Judges in that case ruled that government’s prohibition on gun ownership by drug users is justified only in certain circumstances—not always.
“Nothing in our tradition allows disarmament simply because [the defendant] belongs to a category of people, drug users, that Congress has categorically deemed dangerous,” their ruling said.
In Baxter, the Eighth Circuit ruled 922(g)(3) unconstitutional as applied to the facts in the case.
Judges in that case wrote that there were insufficient factual findings in the record “for this Court to review Baxter’s as-applied Second Amendment challenge.” Nevertheless, the they wrote, “We reverse the district court’s ruling on Baxter’s as-applied Second Amendment challenge and remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
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